Chapter Three Everything Changes
Friday arrives and the week has been one of the best I can remember.
My résumé is polished. My letter of intent is drafted and ready to print.
Travis proofread both of them Wednesday night over takeout from Carmine’s and told me they were "damn near perfect.
" He suggested two small changes to the résumé and rewrote one paragraph of the letter to make it stronger.
I have to admit he was right on all three counts.
I feel ready. I feel prepared. I feel like something good is about to happen and I’ve earned it.
The morning at the bank is routine. I help a steady line of customers, process three wire transfers, and walk a nervous college student through the process of setting up automatic loan payments. Melissa tells me about a date she went on last night with a guy she met at the hardware store.
"Maybe he was trying to be polite."
"Kaitlyn, you don’t eat ribs with a knife and fork. That’s a red flag."
I laugh and shake my head. Melissa’s dating stories are one of the highlights of my work week. She goes on more first dates than anyone I know and she has an opinion about every single one.
Kendra’s car pulls into the lot around eleven.
I see her through the glass doors and smile.
Friday is her usual deposit day but she’s earlier than normal.
She comes through the entrance carrying the familiar manila envelope of school funds but something about her expression is off.
She’s smiling but it’s tight. Controlled.
She looks at me and there’s something behind her eyes that I can’t quite read.
She walks to my station and sets the envelope on the counter. "Can we do lunch today? Just us?"
"Of course. I was planning on it. Tina’s?"
"Actually, can we go somewhere quieter? Maybe that bench behind the library? I packed sandwiches."
This is unusual. Kendra loves Tina’s. She orders the same chicken salad sandwich every time and she always says the coffee there is better than anything she makes at home. If she wants to eat on a park bench behind the library instead, something is going on.
"Sure," I say. "Give me twenty minutes."
She nods and sits down in the lobby to wait. I process her school deposit quickly, then finish up with two more customers before telling Melissa I’m heading out for lunch. Travis is in a meeting with Linda so I don’t bother telling him. He’ll figure it out.
Kendra and I walk side by side down the sidewalk toward the library.
It’s a warm day and the town is quiet the way small towns get on Friday afternoons when half the population is already thinking about the weekend.
The library is a squat brick building on Elm Street with a small courtyard in the back where they put two wooden benches and a bird feeder that nobody ever fills.
We sit on the bench farthest from the street.
Kendra hands me a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. Peanut butter and jelly. She knows it’s my comfort food and the fact that she made it instead of something more grown-up tells me this conversation is going to be harder than I thought.
"Thanks," I say. "So what’s going on?"
She doesn’t answer right away. She unwraps her own sandwich and takes a bite but doesn’t seem to taste it. She chews slowly, staring straight ahead at the library’s back wall. Then she puts the sandwich down on her lap and turns to face me.
"I need to tell you something and I need you to know that I’ve been losing sleep over whether to say it. But I would never, ever keep this from you. You know that, right?"
My stomach drops. "Kendra, you’re scaring me. What is it?"
"It’s about Travis."
The world gets very quiet. I hear a bird somewhere in the trees above us and the distant sound of a truck on the main road. Kendra’s face is serious and her eyes are already filling with something that looks like guilt even though she hasn’t said anything yet.
"About three weeks ago, I started getting text messages from him. At first they seemed normal. He’d ask how the school year was going or if I’d seen some movie that was out.
I thought he was just being friendly because he’s your boyfriend and I’m your best friend and that’s how people are in small towns. "
She pauses. I don’t move.
"But then the messages started getting more personal. He told me I looked nice when I came into the bank. He asked if I ever got lonely living by myself. He asked if I’d want to grab dinner sometime, just the two of us, to get to know each other better because he thought we’d ‘really click.’"
She says those last two words with a careful precision that tells me she’s quoting him exactly.
"Then the calls started. Mostly in the evenings. I didn’t answer at first because I thought maybe he was calling about something related to you.
Like a birthday surprise or a party or something.
But when I finally picked up last Tuesday, he told me he’d been thinking about me and that he felt a connection with me that he couldn’t explain. "
The peanut butter sandwich sits in my lap untouched. I look down at it and I can feel my heartbeat in my temples. My skin feels strange. Too tight. Too warm.
"Kaitlyn, I swear to you on everything I love, I have never once encouraged him. I have never flirted with him. I have never given him any reason to think I was interested. I’ve barely responded to his texts and the one time I answered his call I told him he was being inappropriate and that I was going to tell you. "
"What did he say to that?"
"He said I was overreacting. That he was just being friendly and I was reading too much into it. Then he texted me the next day like nothing happened."
She reaches into her bag and pulls out her phone. She opens her messages and holds the screen toward me. "I saved everything. Every text. Every missed call notification. I even recorded the voicemail he left me last weekend."
I take the phone from her hand. My fingers feel numb. I scroll through the messages slowly and I read every single one. There are dozens. Travis’s name is at the top of each conversation thread and his words stare back at me from the screen in gray and blue bubbles.
*"You looked beautiful today. That green dress was something else."*
*"Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we hung out, just us? No pressure. Just dinner."*
*"I keep thinking about you. Is that weird? I don’t care if it is."*
*"Kendra, you’re different from most women. I feel like you actually understand me."*
*"Call me when you get a chance. I just want to hear your voice."*
Each message is a small piece of damage. Each one lands in my chest and sits there and I let it because I need to see all of it. I need to understand exactly what this is before I decide what to do about it.
I scroll through the missed calls. There are nine of them spread across three weeks. All from Travis’s personal cell phone. All placed in the evenings between seven and ten, which is the exact window when he usually tells me he’s at home watching television or doing work emails.
I tap on the voicemail notification. Kendra reaches over and takes my hand.
"You don’t have to listen to it right now," she says.
"Yes I do."
I hold the phone to my ear. Travis’s voice comes through, casual and warm, the same voice that told me goodnight four hours ago.
"Hey, it’s me. I know you said I’m being weird but I’m not trying to be. I just feel like there’s something between us and I think you feel it too. Give me a chance, Kendra. One dinner. That’s all I’m asking."
I lower the phone and set it on the bench between us.
I stare at the brick wall of the library.
There is a crack running diagonally from the bottom left corner of the building up to just below the window ledge.
I focus on that crack because it’s the only thing in front of me that makes sense right now.
"Kaitlyn, please say something."
"How long did you wait?" My voice is steady, which surprises me. "Before telling me."
"Two days after the first weird text. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t overreacting before I came to you.
But I swear, the second I realized what he was doing, I knew I had to tell you.
You’re my best friend. You’ve been my best friend since we were seven.
There is nothing in this world that would make me keep this from you. "
I believe her. Completely and without hesitation.
Kendra has never lied to me. She has never hidden anything from me.
When we were in high school and a boy I liked said something cruel about me behind my back, Kendra was the one who told me.
When my college roommate was spreading rumors about me, Kendra drove three hours to confront her in person.
She is the most honest person I know and she always has been.
"I believe you," I say. "I want you to know that. I never doubted you for a second."
She starts to cry. Not loud, messy crying. Just quiet tears rolling down her cheeks while she holds my hand. "I’m so sorry, Kait. I’m so, so sorry."
"You didn’t do anything wrong."
"I know, but I still feel like somehow this is my fault. Like I should have noticed sooner or shut him down harder."
"You did everything right. You told me the truth. That’s all I ever needed from you."
We sit there on that bench for a long time. The sandwich goes uneaten. The bird feeder hangs empty above us. Kendra cries quietly and I hold her hand and I think.
I think about every conversation Travis has had with me about Kendra over the last few weeks.
The casual questions about whether she was dating anyone.
The interest in how often she came to town.
The comment about her being "the type who’d always have a boyfriend.
" I thought he was being a thoughtful partner.
Showing interest in my friendships. Getting to know the people I care about.
He was mapping out his approach. He was using our conversations to figure out the best way to get to Kendra.